Democratic convention to be no-fry zone

Full article (here).

DENVER — Warning to Southern delegates to the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver this August: it will be a no-fry zone.

As part of the effort to make the August 25-28 convention the greenest ever, the Democrats' guidelines for food catering include one that strikes at the heart of Southern cuisine: no fried food.

No fried chicken. No fried catfish. No fried green tomatoes. No fried okra. No fried anything.

In promoting healthy eating habits, the Democratic guidelines say every meal should be nutritious and include "at least three of the following colors: red, green, yellow, purple/blue and white."

(Video) A Pair of Campaign Ads

MoveOn.org attacks McCain:


Response:

The Rational Insurgent

Full article (here).

Bush administration officials (and fellow travelers) aren’t the only ones who believe that when Americans talk about withdrawing from Iraq, it “emboldens the enemy.” Two Harvard researchers recently found that in periods following intensified criticism of the Iraq War by the American public and in the U.S. media, insurgent violence in Iraq increased by 5 to 10 percent. Using data on rates of insurgent attacks, Iraqi access to international news, frequency of antiwar statements in the American media, and U.S. public opinion polls—and controlling for other factors—the authors found that insurgents do not just randomly wreak havoc, but react strategically to developments in American politics. Specifically, when insurgents perceive a drop in American resolve, they unleash more destruction, thereby increasing the cost of fighting for the U.S. military and, they hope, tipping the scales toward a withdrawal. The authors conclude that a “systematic response” in the form of “emboldenment” is evident among insurgents.

Danes with Balls

Full story (here).

Last Thursday the High Court for western Denmark rejected a suit against Jyllands-Posten, the newspaper that first published cartoons of Islam's prophet, leading to deadly protests in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

The court said the editors had not meant to depict Muslims as criminals or terrorists, the cartoons had not broken the law, and there was a relationship between acts of violence and Islam - comments that provoked outcry among Muslim groups in Denmark.

"It is a known fact that acts of terror have been carried out in the name of Islam and it is not illegal to make satire out of this relationship," the court said.

Iraqi forces to take control of security in Anbar Province

This story did not get a lot of attention for some reason.

The U.S. military will transfer control of security in Anbar Province to Iraqi forces this week, the governor of the region said Monday, a remarkable turnaround given that the region was considered lost to insurgents less than two years ago.

Anbar will be the 10th of 18 provinces in Iraq to return security matters to Iraqi control since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003, but it will be the first Sunni Arab region to do so.

Mamun Sami Rasheed, governor of Anbar Province, said the handover ceremony would take place Saturday. "We have been dreaming of this event since 2003," he said.

The commander of U.S. forces in western Iraq, Major General John Kelly of the marines, said the change in security responsibilities showed that Iraqi forces were increasingly ready to defend Iraq against threats like those posed by Al Qaeda.

Anbar Province is "an important milestone," Kelly said. "It changes the nature of our security relationship here."

But the change does not mean that Al Qaeda has been defeated in the region. "What it represents is the improving capability of Iraqi security forces to deal with the threat," Kelly said.

Anbar was once the heartland of the Sunni Arab insurgency against U.S. forces and successive Shiite-led administrations that took over in Baghdad following the downfall of Saddam Hussein, who was from the minority Sunni Arab community.

Iraq's foreign minister has a chat with Barack Obama.

Full article (here).

SEN. BARACK OBAMA told Iraq's foreign minister this week that he plans to visit the country between now and the presidential election. We think that's a good thing, not because Sen. John McCain has been prodding the candidate to do it but because it will give Mr. Obama an opportunity to refresh his badly outdated plan for Iraq. To do that, the Democrat needs to listen more to dedicated Iraqi leaders like Hoshyar Zebari, the foreign minister -- who, it seems, didn't hold back during their telephone conversation.

Mr. Obama laid out his current strategy for Iraq in November 2006, shortly before announcing his candidacy for president. At the time, Iraq appeared to be on the verge of a sectarian civilian war, and Mr. Obama was trying to distinguish himself in the Democratic primary race by offering a timetable for withdrawal. Nineteen months later, the situation in Iraq has changed dramatically, with violence down 75 percent from its peak and the Iraqi government and army in control of most of the country. But Mr. Obama has not altered his position: He still proposes withdrawing most U.S. troops according to a fixed timetable, set to the most rapid pace at which commanders have said American forces could be pulled out.

Mr. Zebari, who has served as foreign minister in every Iraqi government since 2003, finds Mr. Obama's proposal worrying. In a meeting with Post editors and reporters Tuesday, he said that after all the pain and sacrifices of the past five years, "we are just turning the corner in Iraq." A precipitous withdrawal, he said, "would create a huge vacuum and undo all the gains and achievements. And the others" -- enemies of the United States -- "would celebrate."

Poll: most Britons doubt cause of climate change

Full story (here).

The majority of the British public is still not convinced that climate change is caused by humans - and many others believe scientists are exaggerating the problem, according to an exclusive poll for The Observer.

The results have shocked campaigners who hoped that doubts would have been silenced by a report last year by more than 2,500 scientists for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which found a 90 per cent chance that humans were the main cause of climate change and warned that drastic action was needed to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The findings come just before the release of the government's long-awaited renewable energy strategy, which aims to cut the UK's greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent over the next 12 years.

The poll, by Ipsos MORI, found widespread contradictions, with some people saying politicians were not doing enough to tackle the problem, even though they were cynical about government attempts to impose regulations or raise taxes. In a sign of the enormous task ahead for those pushing for drastic cuts to carbon emissions, many people said they did not want to restrict their lifestyles and only a small minority believe they need to make 'significant and radical' changes such as driving and flying less.

Radical UK cleric to be released 'in next 24 hours'

Full story (here).

Radical cleric Abu Qatada, described as "Osama bin Laden's right hand man in Europe," is to be released in the next 24 hours.

Qatada, who is accused of giving advice and support to terrorists including the leader of the September 11 hijackers, has been described in official documents as a "truly dangerous individual" who was "heavily involved, indeed at the centre of terrorist activities associated with al-Qa'eda."

He has been convicted twice in Jordan in his absence for conspiracy to carry out bomb attacks on two hotels in Amman in 1998, and providing finance and advice for a series of bomb attacks in Jordan planned to coincide with the Millennium.

It was those convictions which allowed him to argue in the Appeal Court he would not get a fair treatment in his home country.

With the prospect of extradition removed, the Ministry of Justice has been forced to release him by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission.

Some Thoughts On Global Warming

Full post (here).

Even if we are witnessing the beginning of a long term climate change in progress (and I think it is too soon to say that we are), there are numerous other causative factors that could be involved. We know this because the earth’s climate has gone through major changes long before humans could have been a factor. To assume that the last 20-25 years of warm weather are due to human activity would be similar to having an effect that could be caused by any of ten different factors, and just assuming that one factor was responsible, and ignoring all others. Part of the reason this attitude is prevalent in the area of climate change is that the other factors are not very well understood, so it’s convenient to latch onto one that, at least in theory, is understood.
The mainstream media has played an important role in fostering the idea that global warming is happening, and that it’s due to human activity and that it will get worse. That’s because much of the nation’s media, like the TV networks, are based on the east coast. Whenever there is an unusually warm weather event there, it is a story to them, and they bring in some climatologist or other researcher who believes that global warming is caused by human activity. When the weather on the east coast is cooler than normal, we do not see reports stating that maybe global warming isn’t happening.
Imagine an observer who was present in North America 10,000 years ago as the most recent continental ice sheet was melting. He would have observed the same thing we have observed for the last 20-25 years, but on a much grander scale: a warming climate that spanned hundreds, and probably thousands of years, and the associated melting of the ice.
All of this was happening without the impact of human activity. In fact, the geologic record indicates that there have been four episodes of continental glaciation in the last million years, and each time the climate cooled enough to form the glacier, and then warmed enough to melt the glacier, without any help from man. Back it the 60’s it was fashionable to assume that human civilization has actually developed in an “interglacial” period, and that someday another continental ice sheet will develop. I believe there are some scientists who still hold this view, but you will probably not hear from them on mainstream media outlets.
But even on shorter time scales we have witnessed some major fluctuations in weather patterns. I wouldn’t refer to these as climate changes, because they are of too short a duration. For example, the 1930s (dust bowl era) were warm years. The 1960s were much cooler. The 1990s were warm years. Why did the 1960s cool off at a time when atmospheric CO2 levels were increasing? Why were some our most brutal winters on record in the Midwest in the late 1970s and early 1980s? No one can answer those questions, but it does make one wonder how we can just assume that the warm 1990s and 2000s were caused by human use of fossil fuels, and no other factors were involved.

Obama & Che: Together Again

Former University of Southern Florida student admits to supporting terrorists

This story seemed to slip under the radar for some reason.

Full story (here).

Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed entered a plea agreement Friday.

In the court document, he admits to providing material to support terrorists. He also acknowledges that a YouTube video he produced was to be used in "preparation for or in carrying out the killing of employees of the United States," including uniformed personnel.

Mohamed and Youssef Megahed were arrested August 4, 2007, in Goose Creek, South Carolina after a traffic stop. Authorities recovered a number of items from the car which constituted explosive materials.

Unlike Others, U.S. Defends Freedom to Offend in Speech

Full article (here).

Some prominent legal scholars say the United States should reconsider its position on hate speech.

“It is not clear to me that the Europeans are mistaken,” Jeremy Waldron, a legal philosopher, wrote in The New York Review of Books last month, “when they say that a liberal democracy must take affirmative responsibility for protecting the atmosphere of mutual respect against certain forms of vicious attack.”

Professor Waldron was reviewing “Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment” by Anthony Lewis, the former New York Times columnist. Mr. Lewis has been critical of efforts to use the law to limit hate speech.

But even Mr. Lewis, a liberal, wrote in his book that he was inclined to relax some of the most stringent First Amendment protections “in an age when words have inspired acts of mass murder and terrorism.” In particular, he called for a re-examination of the Supreme Court’s insistence that there is only one justification for making incitement a criminal offense: the likelihood of imminent violence.

The imminence requirement sets a high hurdle. Mere advocacy of violence, terrorism or the overthrow of the government is not enough; the words must be meant to and be likely to produce violence or lawlessness right away. A fiery speech urging an angry mob to immediately assault a black man in its midst probably qualifies as incitement under the First Amendment. A magazine article — or any publication — intended to stir up racial hatred surely does not.

Mr. Lewis wrote that there was “genuinely dangerous” speech that did not meet the imminence requirement.

“I think we should be able to punish speech that urges terrorist violence to an audience, some of whose members are ready to act on the urging,” Mr. Lewis wrote. “That is imminence enough.”

(Video) Denny Crane For President

A Call to Duty at UCI

Full story (here).

In a strongly worded letter, U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) called on the Chancellor of the University of California, Irvine (UCI), to condemn rampant anti-Semitism at events organized and sponsored by its Muslim Student Union (MSU). The letter pointed out that such an event held just weeks ago, appeared "intended to encourage violence against the State of Israel and propagate the spread of anti-Semitism."

MSU events routinely feature anti-Semitic and pro-terror figures, notably Washington D.C.-based radical cleric Mohammed al-Asi and Oakland-based Amir Abdel Malik Ali, an African American convert born Derek Gilliam. Both are known for their high level of vitriol, hatred and support for suicide bombings. The latest event, which took place from May 7 to May 15, was called "Never Again? The Palestinian Holocaust."

In his letter, Rep. Sherman explained that, "Comparing current Israeli policies to the Holocaust, the systematic murder of the Jewish people of Europe, is clearly anti-Semitic. It wholly demeans the Jewish victims of the Holocaust and vilifies the Jewish citizens of Israel." He also noted that this position is officially supported by the US government, and quoted the State Department's most recent Contemporary Global Anti-Semitism Report as proof.

Rep. Sherman also expressed concern over one of the speakers at the May event, Abdel Malik Ali, who spoke at sessions entitled, "Death to Apartheid: A Farewell to Zionism" and "Silence is Consent: Stop the Palestinian Holocaust." The letter cited a 2006 YouTube video that shows Malik Ali at a previous UCI event, where he said:

The truth of the matter is: [Israel's] days are numbered. We will fight you until we are either martyred or until we are victorious.

Unfortunately, these examples of radicalism and anti-Semitism emanating from UCI's Muslim Student Union are only a few among many. The MSU at UCI is perhaps the most radical Muslim student organization in the United States.

Pakistan to ask EU to amend laws on freedom of expression

Full story (here).

Pakistan will ask the European Union countries to amend laws regarding freedom of expression in order to prevent offensive incidents such as the printing of blasphemous caricatures of Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) and the production of an anti-Islam film by a Dutch legislator, sources in the Interior Ministry told Daily Times on Saturday.

They said that a six-member high-level delegation comprising officials from the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Law would leave Islamabad on Sunday (today) for the EU headquarters in Brussels, Belgium and explain to the EU leadership the backlash against the blasphemous campaign in the name of freedom of expression.

The delegation, headed by an additional secretary of the Interior Ministry, will meet the leaders of the EU countries in a bid to convince them that the recent attack on the Danish Embassy in Pakistan could be a reaction against the blasphemous campaign, sources said.

They said that the delegation would also tell the EU that if such acts against Islam are not controlled, more attacks on the EU diplomatic missions abroad could not be ruled out.

Voting for Commander in Chief

Full story (here).

So what happened? President Bush ordered the surge. He committed an additional five Army brigades and two Marine battalions to Iraq with the mission of protecting the Iraqi population. In accomplishing this, U.S. forces partnered with Iraqi troops precisely as McCain had suggested, helping them "hold" areas that they had jointly "cleared." Meanwhile, American troops established bonds with local leaders, as McCain had said they would, which led to the expansion of the "Anbar Awakening" movement throughout central Iraq. And U.S. troops developed numerous economic and infrastructure projects that provided jobs.

Sectarian violence stopped almost completely. Al Qaeda in Iraq was dealt what CIA director Michael Hayden now assesses as "a near strategic defeat." This allowed Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to commit Iraqi Security Forces directly against the last remaining illegal militias in Iraq, clearing them out of Basra and Sadr City--weaning "the populace off their reliance on militias for safety," as McCain had put it. American casualties initially rose, as McCain had warned they would, but then fell dramatically: Last month was the lowest-casualty month of the entire war.

Once violence was under control, the Iraqis began to make serious political progress, as McCain had predicted. They passed almost all of the "benchmark" legislation that Obama's bill would have required.

What would have happened if Obama's bill had passed? There is no way to know for sure, but it seems likely that, facing less resistance, Al Qaeda in Iraq would have continued to gain strength, the fragile Iraqi Security Forces would have collapsed, as would the fragile Iraqi government, militias would have flourished--and the United States would have departed under fire, accepting a humiliating defeat in the war against al Qaeda that would have reverberated globally.

For any voter trying to choose between the two candidates for commander in chief, there is no better test than this: When American strategy in a critical theater was up for grabs, John McCain proposed a highly unpopular and risky path, which he accurately predicted could lead to success. Barack Obama proposed a popular and politically safe route that would have led to an unnecessary and debilitating American defeat at the hands of al Qaeda.

The two men brought different backgrounds to the test, of course. In January 2007, McCain had been a senator for 20 years and had served in the military for 23 years. Obama had been a senator for 2 years and before that was a state legislator, lawyer, and community organizer. But neither presidential candidates nor the commander in chief gets to choose the tests that history brings. Once in office, the one elected must perform.

Pakistan ambassador: 'Are you satisfied?'

Full article (here).

Danes need look no further than their own newspapers to find the reason for the car bombing that severely damaged their embassy in Pakistan on Monday, according to Rohan Gunaranta, an international terrorism expert from Pakistan.

'There is still a lot of dissatisfaction here about the cartoons, as well as the fact that the Danish government still has not condemned them or the people that were responsible for them. As long as that hasn't happened, Denmark will be under the constant threat of militant muslims,' Gunaranta said.

Fauzia Mufti Abbas, Pakistan's ambassador to Denmark, agreed that the Mohammed cartoons, first published in Jyllands-Posten newspaper in October 2005, had incited Muslim anger and were possibly the motivation for the attack, which killed eight and wounded as many as 30.

'It isn't just the people of Pakistan that feel they have been harassed by what your newspaper has begun,' she said. 'I'd like to know if your newspaper is satisfied with what it has done and what it has unleashed?'

(Video) D-Day: Crisis On Omaha

I have always wanted someone to make this...now they have!

Don't worry about the bad acting, it is worth every minute.

(Video) Quitting Is Not An Option

Why Obama Must Go to Iraq

Full article (here).

Earlier this year, I spent five days in Iraq, walking the same streets in Baghdad where I had served two years earlier as an infantry platoon leader in the 101st Airborne Division.

The visit reinforced for me not only the immense complexity of the war – so often lost in our domestic political debate – but also the importance of taking the time to visit Iraq to talk with the soldiers and Marines serving on the front lines in order to grasp the changing dynamics of a fluid battlefield.

It is for this reason that the failure of Sen. Barack Obama to travel to Iraq over the past two and a half years is worrisome, and a legitimate issue in this presidential election.

Since his election to the United States Senate in 2004, Mr. Obama has traveled to Iraq just once – in January 2006. This was more than a year before Gen. David Petraeus took command and the surge began. It was also several months before Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government came into office. Although Mr. Obama frequently criticizes the Iraqi leader on the campaign trail, he has never actually met him.

Mr. Obama's conduct is strikingly different from that of Sen. John McCain, who has been to Iraq eight times since 2003 – including three times since surge forces began to arrive in Baghdad. The senior senator from Arizona has made it his mission to truly understand what is happening on the ground, in all its messy reality.

Mr. Obama has dismissed the value of such trips, suggesting they are stage-managed productions designated to obfuscate, not illuminate, the truth. This has become an all-too-common sentiment within the Democratic Party leadership, especially since the surge began to transform conditions on the ground for the better. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has denied that there is any value in visiting the troops in Iraq, and has never done so.

Marine acquitted in Haditha killing cover-up case

Full story (here).

A military jury acquitted a Marine intelligence officer Wednesday of charges that he tried to help cover up the killings of 24 Iraqis.

Cheers erupted as the seven-officer panel cleared 1st Lt. Andrew Grayson, who was the first of three Marines to be tried in the biggest U.S. criminal case involving Iraqi deaths linked to the war. The verdict came just five hours after deliberations began.

The judge, Maj. Brian E. Kasprzyk, admonished the noisy courtroom, saying: "There will be no more of that."

Grayson, who has always maintained he did nothing wrong, was not at the scene of the killings of men, women and children on Nov. 19, 2005, in Haditha. He was accused of telling a sergeant to delete photographs of the dead from a digital camera and laptop computer.

Outside the courtroom, a visibly emotional Grayson said the verdict was an end to a terrible ordeal.

"It's finally time for me to get to be with my family," he said, fighting back tears.

His wife, Susan, cried as she said what she had only dared to think about for months: "It's over."

Israel in the Gardens 2008

Photo essay of a pro-Israel event in San Francisco.

I wonder what will happen...

http://www.zombietime.com/israel_in_the_gardens_2008/

PFC Ross McGinnis Receives Medal of Honor

Full story (here).

The President of the United States of America, authorized by act of Congress, March 3rd, 1863, has awarded in the name of Congress the Medal of Honor to Private First Class Ross A. McGinnis, United States Army, for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Private First Class Ross A. McGinnis distinguished himself by acts of gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty while serving as an M2 .50-caliber Machine Gunner, 1st Platoon, C Company, 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, in connection with combat operations against an armed enemy in Adhamiyah, Northeast Baghdad, Iraq, on 4 December 2006.

That afternoon his platoon was conducting combat control operations in an effort to reduce and control sectarian violence in the area. While Private McGinnis was manning the M2 .50-caliber Machine Gun, a fragmentation grenade thrown by an insurgent fell through the gunner's hatch into the vehicle. Reacting quickly, he yelled "grenade," allowing all four members of his crew to prepare for the grenade's blast. Then, rather than leaping from the gunner's hatch to safety, Private McGinnis made the courageous decision to protect his crew. In a selfless act of bravery, in which he was mortally wounded, Private McGinnis covered the live grenade, pinning it between his body and the vehicle and absorbing most of the explosion.

Private McGinnis' gallant action directly saved four men from certain serious injury or death. Private First Class McGinnis' extraordinary heroism and selflessness at the cost of his own life, above and beyond the call of duty, are in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit, and the United States Army.

French FM says security improving in Iraq

Full story (here).

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on Sunday that the security situation in Iraq was improving and reaffirmed France's willingness to help rebuild the war-ravaged country.

"I have the feeling that things are better. Statistics show a drop in security incidents," Kouchner told AFP after a working lunch with his Iraqi counterpart Hoshyar Zebari on the last day of his two-day visit to Iraq.

There is "an improvement in the situation in Iraq," he said.

Kouchner also voiced satisfaction at efforts by the Iraqis to take charge of their own country, saying they were making "progress."

"The Iraqis themselves, with their army, their administration, are taking charge of their own problems," Kouchner said.

He then went to Arbil, capital of the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq, to open a French representative office before wrapping up his visit.

Kouchner arrived from neighbouring Jordan on Saturday on an unannounced trip which he said was aimed at underlining Paris's "renewed political commitment" to Iraq.

Iraq hits milestones on U.S. troop deaths, oil

Full article (here).

U.S. troop deaths in Iraq fell to their lowest level last month since the 2003 invasion and officials said on Sunday improved security also helped the country boost oil production in May to a post-war high.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Iraq's oil minister credited better security for the two milestones, which illustrated a dramatic turnabout in the fortunes of a country on the brink of all-out sectarian civil war just 12 months ago.

"We've still got a distance to go but I think lower casualty rates are a reflection of some real progress," Gates told reporters in Singapore. "The key will be to continue to sustain the progress we have seen."

American generals have stressed that the security gains are both fragile and reversible. That was shown in March, when an Iraqi government offensive against Shi'ite militias in southern Basra sparked a surge in violence in the capital and other cities, catching U.S. and Iraqi officials off guard.

The U.S. military said 19 soldiers died in May, the lowest monthly death toll in a five-year-old war that has so far claimed the lives of more than 4,000 American soldiers.

Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani told Reuters in an interview that the improved security had helped Iraq, which has the world's third-largest oil reserves, raise oil production to a post-war high of 2.5 million barrels per day in May.